Have you ever heard of a cruise line keeping the passengers passports?

[JimAOk1945]

Have you ever heard of a cruise line keeping the passengers passports during the cruise and then returning them later?

 

I've already done quite a bit of reading and research but I'm unable to find the answer.

 

I read somewhere on one of the threads that a cruise line (sorry, I don't know which one) kept everyone's passport until the cruise was over.

 

Does anyone know which cruise line does this?

Does it depend on the itinerary?

Why would they do this?

 

Thanks in advance for your answers!

Edited March 2, 2014 by JimAOk1945

[landj999]

Sure , not unusual at all.

[dolittle]

I think it is only for some stops not the whole cruise we have had this once or twice they will take them for 24 hours or so then return them. It is the local country that makes them do this, it is it is a royal pain for the cruise line B.T.Y. I think it my have been Turkey.

[Rickey 88]

Can't speak about all cruise lines, but the ones we have sailed with do collect passports at the beginning of any cruise. They are then held with the purser's office for immigration who may board depending on countries visited.

 

With only two exceptions, immigration is done in the middle of the night, so there is no inconvenience to passengers. Your passports are returned the day before your final arrival.

 

As a precaution, we always take a photocopy of each passport with us, but have never needed it.

[Ravenscroft]

Yes. Silversea has kept our passports on all the cruises we've done with them, different areas of the world so not local policy for one specific country.

They keep them safe at the reception desk.

The only port they've ever had to give us them back midcruise, was to undergo an intense face to face immigration check onboard, that was at Key West. :D MOTWYW

 

Is there are a particular reason you've posted this on the Spain ports board?

 

Edited to add that it's been a while since we last cruised with Silversea, so it may be different now.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Ravenscroft

[Turtles06]

Several years ago on a Med cruise with NCL departing from Barcelona, NCL took everyone's passports upon boarding and returned them to us before our port stop in Egypt (they were kept for Rome, Athens, and Izmir), if I'm remembering correctly. I'm pretty certain this was not NCL's doing but required by the authorities in one or more of those countries, as others have said above. (I believe the immigration authorities board the ship upon arrival and go through the passports.)

[cberge]

Have you ever heard of a cruise line keeping the passengers passports during the cruise and then returning them later?

 

I've already done quite a bit of reading and research but I'm unable to find the answer.

 

I read somewhere on one of the threads that a cruise line (sorry, I don't know which one) kept everyone's passport until the cruise was over.

 

Does anyone know which cruise line does this?

Does it depend on the itinerary?

Why would they do this?

 

Thanks in advance for your answers!

 

 

 

You have some very good replies to your question,and yes some cruislines do this..we have always been on cruises that do this and never a problem. Is this something that would bother you? If so I would suggest you ask before you book just in case. It is not wise to carry your passport off the ship anyway,unless really a need to. A copy is usually ok.

[JimAOk1945]

You have some very good replies to your question,and yes some cruislines do this..we have always been on cruises that do this and never a problem. Is this something that would bother you? If so I would suggest you ask before you book just in case. It is not wise to carry your passport off the ship anyway,unless really a need to. A copy is usually ok.

 

Thanks for replying. No, it would not bother me. I think I would probably make copies of our passports to carry with us while we go ashore just in case! :D I will ask our TA about it but she is new so I thought I would ask the experienced travelers here on CC.

[JimAOk1945]

Is there are a particular reason you've posted this on the Spain ports board?

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

I posted my question here because we will be sailing round trip from Barcelona.

 

I appreciate all the great responses I've received here. CC members have always been my "go-to-guys" when I need answers!

[Ravenscroft]

Thanks for your reply.

 

I posted my question here because we will be sailing round trip from Barcelona.

 

 

I wondered if that was the case.

One of the cruises we took did indeed depart from Barcelona, and yes our passports were taken by the cruise line. Again it was Silversea, so I can't say whether this is because of their policy, or local policy. On our other cruises we've always kept our passports.

Please update after your cruise as I'm curious about this too now!

[mboop]

Hi!

Last year Priencess Cruise kept our passaports for few ports. I thought that is a normal process.

[JimAOk1945]

I wondered if that was the case.

One of the cruises we took did indeed depart from Barcelona, and yes our passports were taken by the cruise line. Again it was Silversea, so I can't say whether this is because of their policy, or local policy. On our other cruises we've always kept our passports.

Please update after your cruise as I'm curious about this too now!

 

We will be sailing on Royal Caribbean for our Med cruise next year. I will try to come back after we return and post our experience. It may be helpful to others.

[JimAOk1945]

Hi!

Last year Priencess Cruise kept our passaports for few ports. I thought that is a normal process.

 

I'm beginning to think it may depend on the itinerary. Did you sail overseas?

 

So far, we have been on 10 cruises but they have only been to Alaska, the Caribbean, and New England/Canada. We kept our passports on all of those cruises.

[cberge]

I'm beginning to think it may depend on the itinerary. Did you sail overseas?

 

So far, we have been on 10 cruises but they have only been to Alaska, the Caribbean, and New England/Canada. We kept our passports on all of those cruises.

 

Aha...this is why you asked.Med cruises, and other's are different because having the passports make it easier for the ships to clear customs when coming into port.Nothing like the Caribe etc.

[dolittle]

We have been on 3 Med. cruises and never had our Passports taken only once in Turkey.

[Northern Aurora]

We've had our passports collected twice. The first time was on a Honolulu to Sydney trans-pacific when all passengers had passports collected on embarkation; we were given receipts and they were returned once we left French Polynesia.

 

The second time was on a Ft. Lauderdale to Barcelona trans-atlantic. There were about 300 B2B passengers, and those of us on B2B sailings were asked to deliver our passports to Guest Relations a few days before the arrival in Barcelona. Apparently EU customs and immigration folks boarded the ship at our last port prior to Barcelona. The morning we reached Barcelona our passports were returned to us and since our EU customs and immigration procedures had already been done those of us on the B2B just walked off the ship to enjoy our day in Barcelona.

[JimAOk1945]

This is all very interesting and extremely helpful! Please keep the comments coming!

[Sinppu]

If your ship sails to a country outside the European Union (and you are not a EU citizen), your passports will be held.

 

Hence when I sailed from Italy to Greece and Turkey, I got to keep my passport (I'm Finnish).

Canadians, Americans, Russians, Norwegians, Australians etc. had to give theirs away.

 

As stated earlier, it has NOTHING to do with the cruise line.

The European Union gives free movement inside its borders but if you go outside (Turkey, for example) it is a different story.

[Ravenscroft]

This is all very interesting and extremely helpful! Please keep the comments coming!

 

I mentioned that whenever we've sailed with Silversea, I seem to remember that they kept our passports. We're both UK passport holders.

The passports are left at the reception desk on embarkation, and the staff there put a small sticker on the top right corner of the passport with the cabin number on it, so they can file them in that order. I've now found my old passport with the stickers on, I didn't remove them.

I can now say for sure, by process of elimination of looking at the number on each sticker, :D that SS has kept hold of our passports for the following cruises :

Western Med, departing from Barcelona.

Eastern Caribbean, departed from Fort Lauderdale x 2

Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, departed also from Fort Lauderdale.

The only exception is that our passports were returned to us when we were docked in Key West, as we had to show them as well as our cruise card in order to reboard the ship.

 

More recently we've cruised the Baltic and the southern Caribbean with Seabourn, and both times we kept our passports with us, in the cabin safe.

We're on Seabourn again next week so I'll update after the cruise in early April.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Ravenscroft

[JimAOk1945]

I mentioned that whenever we've sailed with Silversea, I seem to remember that they kept our passports. We're both UK passport holders.

The passports are left at the reception desk on embarkation, and the staff there put a small sticker on the top right corner of the passport with the cabin number on it, so they can file them in that order. I've now found my old passport with the stickers on, I didn't remove them.

I can now say for sure, by process of elimination of looking at the number on each sticker, :D that SS has kept hold of our passports for the following cruises :

Western Med, departing from Barcelona.

Eastern Caribbean, departed from Fort Lauderdale x 2

Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, departed also from Fort Lauderdale.

The only exception is that our passports were returned to us when we were docked in Key West, as we had to show them as well as our cruise card in order to reboard the ship.

 

More recently we've cruised the Baltic and the southern Caribbean with Seabourn, and both times we kept our passports with us, in the cabin safe.

We're on Seabourn again next week so I'll update after the cruise in early April.

 

I appreciate your post. I'm looking forward to reading your update after your April cruise.

 

Have you posted a review of any of your Seabourn or Silverseacruises? I would like to read them if you have. We are looking for something more upscale for the future.

Edited March 7, 2014 by JimAOk1945

[cberge]

I appreciate your post. I'm looking forward to reading your update after your April cruise.

 

Have you posted a review of any of your Seabourn or Silverseacruises? I would like to read them if you have. We are looking for something more upscale for the future.

 

I am not the person you asked,but we love Silverseas...after the small Renaissance ships were no more we went to Silversea and never looked back.We like the smallest of the fleet.They do great shore excursions as well and usually dock in the port..we have only tendered a few times. Well worth the money.

[JimAOk1945]

I am not the person you asked,but we love Silverseas...after the small Renaissance ships were no more we went to Silversea and never looked back.We like the smallest of the fleet.They do great shore excursions as well and usually dock in the port..we have only tendered a few times. Well worth the money.

 

Thanks for your reply. People on CC are so helpful. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

 

Happy Cruising!

[ecotravel74]

We have done a lot of cruising and have never had our passports taken from us except twice. The first time was on leaving Rhodes for Haifa in Israel on HAL. The afternoon before arrival everyone had, by assigned number, to go to the theater collecting our passports before we went in. We had to go in one by one. In front of the stage was a table behind which sat three very stern Israeli Immigration officials who carefully scrutinized our passport and our faces before nodding an OK. We were told that if we disembarked in Israel, we MUST carry our passports as the military made frequent spot checks.

The passports were again collected on leaving Haifa for review by an EU Immigration official and returned before arrival in Cyprus.(no face to face).

[John Bull]

All the replies you've received are based on personal experiences, and you'll be very aware by now that it happens on different itineraries & different ships, and runs as smooth as clockwork.

It's generally so that immigration officers can go through passports when convenient for all concerned, rather than requiring passengers to line up to present them at daft o'clock in the morning. Often those immigration officers will have boarded at a preceding port.

 

If you should need (or simply prefer) to take your passport ashore at ports where it's generally not required, then it's no problem to retrieve it from the purser (Guest Relations), and give it back to them when you return.

We did this when at Aqaba (Jordan) we wanted to cross into Israel for the day, having exhausted the Jordanian sights on previous visits. Others might need as extra ID for car rental, etc.

 

No worries :cool:

 

JB :)

[JimAOk1945]

Hey Everyone,

 

I appreciate all who have take the time to post their experiences and advice. It's always great to find out how others have handled overseas traveling.

 

Thanks and happy sailing wherever you go! :D!